THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT 
              Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: Sunday, February 16, 1997             TAG: 9702110415
SECTION: COMMENTARY              PAGE: J2   EDITION: FINAL 
TYPE: BOOK REVIEW 
SOURCE: By Bill Roach
                                            LENGTH:   78 lines

FROM THE MILITARY SHELF

DESTROYER SKIPPER

A Memoir of Command at Sea

DON SHEPPARD

Presidio. 270 pp. $24.95.

Destroyer Skipper completes Don Sheppard's trilogy (Riverine and Bluewater Sailor) about the experiences of a self-described maverick who rose from enlisted service to command a U.S. combat vessel. This is a straightforward narrative, enlivened with humor and dialogue, that covers Sheppard's tenure as an executive officer and then as commanding officer of a destroyer in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

IRONCLAW

A Navy Carrier Pilot's War Experience

SHERMAN BALDWIN

William Morrow. 265 pp. $24.

Sherman Baldwin's Ironclaw is a gripping account by a ``nugget'' (a junior Navy pilot) assigned to the USS Midway on the eve of the Persian Gulf War. Baldwin tells what it's like to fly an EA-6B Prowler electronic attack aircraft. His book has the most vivid, detailed descriptions yet of launching off of a carrier's deck, flying training and combat, and landing on a pitching and tossing deck at night.

COVERT WARRIOR

Fighting the CIA's Secret War in Southeast Asia and China, 1965-67.

WARNER SMITH.

Presidio. 231 pp. $24.95.

Covert Warrior, by Warner Smith, is a memoir of a different type and era. It details 20 months of combat by an elite reconnaissance and covert combat patrol. Initially trained at Naval Air Station Pensacola (ostensibly for naval intelligence), Smith describes the 16-man unit's rigorous training and feats of combat. The most vivid writing is of a mission that discovered a temporary POW camp, attacked the camp and rescued the prisoners.

SEA OF GRASS

CHARLES M. FUSS JR.

Naval Institute Press. 326 pp. $31.95.

In Sea of Grass, Charles M. Fuss Jr. relates the Coast Guard and U.S. Customs Service's 20-year sea battle against drugs. Fuss, whose efforts have led to the conviction of more than 100 drug smugglers, was a special agent for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), assigned to the National Narcotics Border Interdiction Staff and later to the Office of National Drug Control Policy. Packed with information, this is not an easy read.

ARMY WIVES ON THE AMERICAN FRONTIER

ANNE BRUNER EALES

Johnson Books. 210 pp. $16.95 (paper).

Army Wives on the American Frontier, by Virginian Anne Bruner Eales, describes life for 50 Army wives between 1865 and 1898. Eales, herself an Army wife, has used excerpts from diaries, memoirs, letters, newspaper stories and official correspondence to stitch together stories about women who braved disease, hardship and boredom to serve with their men on the frontier.

LIFE IN NELSON'S NAVY

DUDLEY POPE

Naval Institute Press. 280 pp. $15.95 (paper).

For readers of 18-century sea stories, Life in Nelson's Navy, by Dudley Pope, provides ample background about life in the Royal Navay. Pope, a distinguished naval historian, creator of the 16 Ramage sea novels, as well as a naval officer and yachtsman, brings us a typical day aboard a man-of-war. Powers and responsibilities of ship's captains and the specialized tasks carried out on a warship of that day are carefully detailed, along with information about promotions and discipline.